Health Comm Interventions
The Case of Soul City
Thomas Tufte, Prof.
Roskilde University, Denmark
ttufte@ruc.dk
Emory University, 13 April 2011
Comm Interventions:
Key players…
Governments
 UN/International governmental agencies
 INGOs/NGOs
 Social Movements/TANs
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Edutainment
– telling stories strategically
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Entertainment-education is the use of
entertainment as a communicative
practice crafted to strategically
communicate about development issues in
a manner and with a purpose that can
range from the more narrowly defined
social marketing of individual behaviours
to the liberating and citizen-driven
articulation of social change agendas
(Tufte 2005)
Making the Private Public
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Compared with the reality which comes from
being seen and heard, even the greatest forces
of intimate life – the passions of the heart, the
thoughts of the mind, the delights of the senses
– lead to an uncertain, shadowy kind of
existence unless and until they are transformed,
deprivatized and deindividualized, as it were,
into a shape to fit them for public appearance.
The most current of such transformations occurs
in storytelling… (Hannah Arendt, The Human
Condition, 1958: 50)
Coping Strategy
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Storytelling is a coping strategy that involves making
words stand for the world, and then, by manipulating
them, changing one’s experience of the world. By
constructing, relating and sharing stories, people
contrive to restore viability to the relationship with
others, redressing a bias toward autonomy when it has
been lost, and affirming collective ideals in the face of
disparate experiences. It is not that speech is a
replacement for action: rather that it is a supplement, to
be exploited when action is impossible or confounded
(Michael Jackson, 2002: 18)
Soul City
- working principles
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Edutainment as strategic focus
On-going since 1994
Branded
High quality
Multi-media
Research-driven
Training and educational components
Strategic partnerships (NVAW)
Community mobilizing
Advocacy on several levels
Example: Soul City
HIV/AIDS + Domestic Violence
Which change process do you wish to
create/articulate?
Individual Change
 Knowledge
 Skills
 Attitudes
 Practices
Social Change
 Leadership
 Degree and Equity of
Participation
 Information Equity
 Collective Self-Efficacy
 Sense of Ownership
 Social Cohesion
 Social Norms
Communication and Development: New
Theoretical Perspectives
Post–Development
* Issues of voice, questioning the dominant discourse of development
Radical democracy
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Framework on democracy and citizenship (Chantal Mouffe – 1993/2005)
Cultural Studies
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Audience Reception Analysis and Sense–Making processes
Telenovelas, storytelling – understanding potential of soap operas
Dialogic Communication and liberating pedagogy (Paulo Freire 1967)
Voice and public discourse
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Theory of public sphere (Habermas/Thompson/Rosa Maria Alfaro)
Discourse Analysis
Contemporary Themes in the
ComDev Debate
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Development paradigms – increased focus on
citizens, participation, agency
Role of popular culture, narrative and identity
formation
Power issues and (mediated)public sphere
Social movements, TANs
New media
Edutainment
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Definition of the
problem
Lack of information
Lack of information
and skills
Structural inequality
Power relations
Social conflict
Notion of culture
Culture as obstacle
Culture as ally
Culture as ’way of life’
Notion of catalyist
External change agent
External catalyst in
partnership with
the community
Internal community
member
Notion of education
Banking pedagogy
Life skills
Didactics
Liberating pedagogy
Notion of audience
Segments
Target groups
Passive
Participatory
Target groups
Active
Citizens
Active
What are you
communicating
Messages
Messages and
situations
Social issues and problems
Notion of change
Individual behaviour
Social Norms
Individual Behaviour
Social Norms
Structural Conditions
Individual Behaviour
Social Norms
Power relations
Structural Conditions
Expected outcome
Changs of norms and
individual
behaviour
Numerical results
Changs of norms and
individual
behaviour
Public and Private
Debate
Articulation of political and
social processes
Structural Change
Collective Action
Duration of activity
Short Term
Short and Middle term
Mid- and Long term
Diffusion model
Definition of communication: information transfer - vertical
Definition of development communication: information dissemination
via mass media
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Problem:
Solution:
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Goal:
Frameworks:
lack of information
information transfer: Knowledge  Attitudes 
Practice
outcome oriented: behavior change
Modernization
Diffusion of innovations
Types of interventions
Social marketing
Entertainment-education
Participatory model
Definition of communication: information exchange/dialogue -
horizontal
Definition of development communication: grassroots participation via
group interaction
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Problem:
Solution:
Goal:
community
Frameworks:
structural inequalities/local knowledge ignored
information exchange/ participation
process-oriented: empowerment, equity,
Social change/praxis (Freire)
Social mobilization/activism
Types of interventions
Empowerment education
Participatory Action Research
Rapid Participatory Appraisal
Community Involm. in Health
Communication for Social
Change
Definition
CFSC is a process of public and private
dialogue through which people themselves
define who they are, what they need and
how to get what they need in order to
improve their own lives. It utilizes dialogue
that leads to collective problem identification,
decision making and community-based
implementation of solutions to development
issues
(Ref: www.communicationforsocialchange)